I grew up watching all sorts of shows about people my age trying to deal with life. The Facts of Life, 90201, then on to Melrose Place and Friends. Most of these shows had a fatal flaw. They were populated by self-centered, narcissistic, vapid characters.

One of my favorite toys as a child (and yes, even as an adult), is Lego. The bricks are great fun for stress relief and they require at least some amount of imagination. I have sets back from the early 70s all the way to a pristine, in-the-box collection of all of the Harry Potter-related sets (I don’t know why I’m keeping them in the box, other than to say I have them… maybe I’d let my kids play with them?).

But the toy villain from my youth has got to be the Rubik’s Cube. They musta’ released a billion versions of that thing in the 80s. And if 9 squares/side wasn’t bad enough in about 10 different sizes (from microscopically small to desk-size large), the 12 square/side version (Rubik’s Revenge, I believe it was called) was awful. Then they released them in ball-shaped versions, triangle-shaped versions… even a thing called the snake.

So I’m quite happy to see that someone took the time to build a Lego Mindstorms (computer-controlled Legos) set that is designed to solve a Rubik’s Cube. It works by color-reading each side, generating a solution set and executing it. Check it out:

If you were born in the 70s, grew up in the 80s and were male… you LOVED Knight Rider. The Hoff wasn’t a dweeb yet (we had no idea he wanted to sing). KITT (the car) was awesome – and so was Bonnie. But I digress.

Mio just released their Knight Rider GPS – which comes STANDARD with William Daniels as the voice of this turn-by-turn speaking device.

Sweet! Hey Tina!!! I want one. My birthday is coming in a few months! 🙂

The new video for Again and Again by The Bird and The Bee. If you’re not a Mac user, you might not notice all of the intricacies of the movement through the Mac operating system… but you should still find the video interesting.

It’s 2:31 AM. The Democratic Party is sleeping peacefully when it hears its phone buzz on the night stand. It rolls over and sees “Hillary” on the caller ID. It pauses briefly, considering pushing “END” and not dealing with this shit tonight. The thought is appealing but the Democratic Party knows that if it doesn’t take this call, another one is only minutes away.

DEMS: …Hello?

Hillary: Hey baby.

DEMS: C’mon Hillary. Enough with this.

Hillary: Don’t you get it? You NEED me.

DEMS: No, I don’t. It was fun while it lasted but I’m with Barack now. I made my choice, it’s done.

Hillary: You can’t really mean that. How can you say that after all the good times we had?

I was walking with one of my MBA class teams through an open-air mall the other day (don’t ask why… not relevant to the story). These types of malls always pipe-in music, and today’s selection was “Maneater” by Hall & Oates. I mentioned that if getting older wasn’t enough, I’d noticed that advertisers realized that I’m in my mid-thirty’s too. I suppose they believe I have money to burn, because there are just WAY too many ads that use 80s music.

The lone female in the group says “So……. you must have all been born in the 70s, right?”

“Yes,” we collectively reply. “When were you born?”

“1987.”

Ouch.

Anyways, here’s the list of songs that I’ve heard that are featured in various ads on TV and radio.

“All Out of Love” – Air Supply – Denny’s Breakfast

“Blister in the Sun” – Violent Femmes – Wendy’s

“Cruel Summer” – Bananarama – Kellog’s Special K

“Da Da Da” – Trio – Volkswagen

“Don’t You Want Me” – Human League – Chips Ahoy

“Final Countdown” – Europe – Nintendo Wii

“Hungry Like The Wolf” – Duran Duran – Old Spice (my personal favorite because it also has Bruce Campbell singing it at a piano)

“I Melt with You” – Modern English – Taco Bell Cheesy Melt

“I Melt with You” – Modern English – GMC Acadia

“I Want Candy” – Bow Wow Bow – Pringles

“Love My Way” – Psychedelic Furs – CBS Cold Case teaser

“Making Love Out of Nothing at All” – Air Supply – Wendy’s

“Maniac” – Michael Sambello – Kia

“Money for Nothing” – Dire Straits – Toyota

“One Thing Leads to Another” – The Fixx – LendingTree

“Our House” – Madness – Maxwell House

“Over the Rainbow” – Israel Kamakawiwo Ole – eToys.com

“Rockit” – Herbie Hancock – Visa Checkcard

“Tainted Love” – Soft Cell – Levi’s (ok, this one is from a few years ago, where they bring a pair of jeans back to live… but still)

“Talk” – Talk Talk – Cingular

“Tarzan Boy” – Baltimora – Listerine (also from a few years ago)

“We’re Not Gonna Take It” – Twisted Sister – Bee Movie

“Whip It” – Devo – Pringle’s Pack-It

What other songs have you heard that bring a smile to your face, but don’t really cause you to go buy any of their products?